


Drive

by the_jenblu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_jenblu/pseuds/the_jenblu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester loved to drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drive

**Author's Note:**

> an exploration of my headcanon about Dean and driving. I may be projecting a bit.

He loved to drive. From the moment he took the wheel for the first time way before he should have, there had been a romance between his hands on the wheel and the tires on the road. He could do everything but sleep behind the wheel. The physical awareness of the car around him and the road under him is a natural talent and a soothing task.

It’s not about the speed, though he doesn’t say no to cherry-on-top situations like roads with more curves than his hook-ups. He prefers the empty roads, long stretches with no one to get in his way. A drive to get there quickly, measuring his pace against distance traveled instead of cars passed, in wind speed and the vibrations under his feet rather than the needle on the dash. Sure, there is joy in flying past slow-moving obstacles. But honestly he’d rather the other cars weren’t there at all. No, speed is a bonus.

It’s not the freedom either. He has no illusions about his freedom or confusion that his car is somehow a ticket out of the chains of his duty or responsibilities. Driving does not free him to do things he could otherwise not; it allows him, obligates him to do more of the things he must. Driving does not expand his horizons; his horizons are pretty damn expanded already. Driving is not independence; he cannot even fathom wanting his life to be independent from everything he has ever known. No, he does not fight under his father’s banner any longer. But, but he cannot free himself from the path he didn’t come to on his own. He has more of a say in the direction they pick then he ever has, but that is not independence. Really, freedom is a whole different conversation. Or argument with his brother. Depends on the day.

He loves his car, his baby; he really does- loved the damn car before he could see over the wheel or reach the pedals. There are moments he can admit that he is more in love with his car than any woman he has ever met. But it’s not about the car. Not all of it anyway. The car- his car- she’s part of the family, the family business. Some days, he thinks the car was the best part of the legacy his father left him, the best part of what his father tried to teach him. The only thing that has meant more to him for longer is his brother. And really they are both tied up with what he loves so much about driving, but they’re just along for the ride too; his car and his brother.

Driving is not an escape for him. Not when everything about his life is in this car, actually physically his entire life between two bumpers, family included. Not when all that he does is contained within the shiny slick black paintjob; stuffed in the glove box or hidden in the trunk or shoved under the seats. He takes his reminders with him, the good and the bad. He would have to get out of the car to make an escape and that is something he has never been able to do, doesn’t see himself doing. So, not an escape.

It’s the movement, the forward motion. Driving. Even the word moves. When there is nothing else to be done, nothing else that can be done, he can drive. It is progress, simply measured and easily attained. Miles checked off in spinning numbers, gas tanks filed, state lines crossed, and elevation changed. Momentum. He can start the morning in freezing mountains smelling of snow east of Albuquerque and end the night in the foggy rolling farmlands west of Nashville. Thread between the Missouri and the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf. Ride the spine of the Rockies down into Canyonlands to Red Rocks to Four Corners.

Away from. Going to. Halfway there. One more bend to round or hill to crest. He can spend an entire afternoon waiting for the just right configuration of food, gas, lodging to appear on blue signs before he pulls the car off the highway. Or better yet an entire night speeding past small town motels until the correct combination of blinking neon sign shape, number of rooms, and curtain color lets him know to stop. And once the grey light of day eases up from the bottom of the sky why stop right? That diner on state road Main Street blinking stoplight downtown probably had decent coffee. It all meant he got to keep driving. 

His dad taught him how to drive, but his brother was sitting shotgun when he learned how to drive. His dad gave him the car, but he realized how much of his self, his heart was tied to driving when his brother navigated. It was funny that he turned to driving to survive the loss of his brother to apple pie picket fences when being behind the wheel made the empty seat next to him so much more obvious. He tried to do the same thing for his brother years later when the family business broke his dreams and stole his girl. Drove and drove and hugged his brother with familiar bench seats and soothed his brow with wind through the open window and drove some more.

He wondered sometimes what arcane symbols might be made from his travels, his drives to danger and monsters and pain, routes while bleeding or screaming or dying. Driving suspended time. The monster was always ahead of him on the road. So was death. The danger could be behind him, and the grief and the failures. No one died on the way. They might die before he left or after he got there but they couldn’t die on the way because he couldn’t know for sure, couldn’t stop to check and make sure or examine the body or loose the trail or check a pulse with both hands on the wheel and his foot pushing the pedal to the floor. Not much incentive to let off the gas.

So he drove. Is driving. Will drive. Chasing and running and driven. Years gone and miles to go. He loved to drive. Today wasn’t much different from yesterday in the driver’s seat. And wasn’t that a comfort. He could put his hands on everything good about his world from this seat. He could feel the engine in his bones and hear the wind mixing with the songs on the radio to make the soundtrack of his life. He knew there was no one on the left, but he glanced at the sideview mirror anyway to see the road stretching behind them. His foot got heavy on the gas as he eased out and around the obstacle blocking his view of the road ahead. His brother looked up from his book as they gained speed; first at the horizon, then at the car falling behind to the right, then at him. He didn’t take his eyes off the road to meet his brother’s gaze, but he did let an answering smile echo on his face.


End file.
